Hello everyone, I hope you had a very Happy Thanksgiving!
I may have been few miles away, but I found comfort in waking up and watching the same Maisies Day Parade as my fellow Americans. I never knew that watching a giant turkey balloons, or seeing the Rockettes perform on TV would bring me such warm and homey feelings. (Thanks to the teammates who surprised us by setting up the projector and live streaming it for us!)
We spent our second month in Chinandega at a ministry called, Vision Nicaragua. We lived in a compound with an active volcano in our backyard – not a shabby view to wake up to! Our entire squad was together this month and I ended up sharing a room with twenty fellow female squad mates. Each day we would wake up, eat delicious Nica breakfast, load into the bed of a truck and drive to nearby villages to do ministry.
Although Costa Rica and Nicaragua are neighboring countries, they both have completely unique and different flavors! Our ministry this past month consisted of door to door evangelism, helping with local medical clinics, and children’s ministry. The majority of our time was spent doing door-to-door ministry.
Door-to-door ministry was exactly what I expected and at the same time, not at all what I expected. Each day, we were dropped off in a new village and told to visit as many houses as possible with the strong advise that we spend only 5-10 minutes at each home and tell them about Jesus. Simple right?
I discovered quickly it was more difficult than I thought. Each home we approached I realized how inadequate I felt. How do you walk up to someone’s door, out of the blue, and tell them the most important life changing news they can ever hear? How to you present the good news of Jesus in a way that will show them how much he means to you? How do you relay information correctly when you don’t speak their language and have to seem natural while waiting for translation? How to do you relate to them when you are from completely different cultural backgrounds? How in the world do you explain who Jesus is and how much we all need Him in FIVE minutes? And as you leave, how do you not feel hopeless when you go to an unreached village and you aren’t able to visit all the houses in time? What do you do when a man is interested in Jesus but doesn’t know any Christians and doesn’t have the ability to read the Bible that you want to leave with Him? How do you smile at them, hug them, or use a tone of voice that is going to show them that you mean what you are saying? How do you convince them that you aren’t just there to convert them? How to you convey to them that they are unconditionally loved? How, how, how? These questions were constantly running through my head until I came to the realization… YOU DON’T; you let the Lord do the work. It’s not up to us to change someone’s heart; it is the Holy Spirit that does that. I spent my first chunk of time in Nicaragua feeling worn out, stressed and like I had failed the Lord. It wasn’t until I Skyped my parents and expressed all these constant questions that I finally began to get some clarity. They reminded me that it’s the Holy Spirit and Jesus who saves them, not me. I had found myself feeling like I HAD to save them, they HAD to accept Jesus right there and then or somehow I had failed them and the Lord. They reminded me that the Lord doesn’t need me: I am just a vessel to plant seeds. The Holy Spirit is the one who reveals and teaches all things (John 14:26). Once this realization sank in I was able to release the weight I thought I had to carry into Jesus’ capable hands, depending on Him to do the rest. The greatest example of this is one I won’t soon forget. We had been to a village where homes were built of logs, palm branches and black plastic. The people welcomed us into their homes as they cooked over fire to hear what we had to say. One home specifically sticks out to me. We entered a home where there were 5 women and a tiny baby. They were friendly and received us. We greeted one another and through a translator I began to tell them about the greatest gift I had ever received, the gift of Salvation through Jesus! When they realized that we were there to tell them about Jesus, the woman of the house became very stiff; a hardened and defensive look came over her face. Her walls were up and we could feel the tension. She was clearly not wanting to hear what we had to say.
After a long discussion listening to her thoughts and sharing ours, before we moved to leave, we asked if we could pray for their family and pray blessings over them. They agreed, and we surrounded them and prayed. When we were finished, I looked up and saw that the once hard and stern expression on her face had turned to soft tears and longing. When I went to give her a hug, she pulled me in and wouldn’t let go. We hugged for a long time and I couldn’t get over how Jesus could change someone so much through a prayer – a prayer in English at that! We had tried to convince her with our words, but it wasn’t until we let go and gave it to Jesus that He worked and moved. I looked up from her embrace and saw that the other women in the house were also crying. We went around hugging each person there, showing them how much we truly cared. I believe that in that moment Jesus was moving more than I could have ever said with words from my own strength.
